Sayonara

I held off buying a Kindle because I was already buying an iPad and thought "well, I can just use the app". I did, and still do sometimes, but I've since bought a Kindle as well and I much prefer it. The screen doesn't tire your eyes anywhere near as quickly as an LCD does, and it's much lighter. It is nice though having the app on a tablet, expecially for books with graphics or charts. And being able to pick up where you left off on your phone when you're in a queue is good too. But I still love my e-Ink device

Which formats do you use? Which is your favourite? Which won't you use, and why? Let battle commence!

Currently reading Jailbird, by Kurt Vonnegut. He's an odd one, but I do like his books.

When all I am doing is suggesting one of many possible explanations as to why your post might not be responded to on a time-scale that would necessarily make you happy, do not start your reply to me with the word "Listen". And don't characterise yourself as "bumping the thread simply to get a status" when in fact you were being deliberately petulant.

You might consider iNow that for most people in academic circles it is currently the beginning of a new semester, and SFN will for many of them be low down on the list of priorities. As always, we will get there eventually.

Just a reminder that there is a Team SFN on the BOINC network, which you can join if you are running programs such as Seti@home. Blike set it up a while ago but I don't think it was ever advertised http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/team_display.php?teamid=134923

I wouldn't have a problem seeing that post in the religion forum. You state your stance on the issue and describe it as nonsense, because it does not make sense to you. Had you added "....the stupid ****s." on the end of it, then we might have a problem.

The rules don't say you cannot call religion nonsense. If someone says something that makes no sense to you, whether or not it relates to a religious topic, then by definition what they said will be 'non-sense' to you. Feel free to express that diplomatically.

And people can still ask for that evidence without making it into an attack. The rule isn't "don't offend people". That would be an impossible requirement. Look, iNow, we are well aware of your stance on religious claims. But we don't base our rules on your opinions. If you can't or won't adhere to the rules, then stay out of the religion forum. There is plenty more internet about the place where you can discharge your opinions.

Yes, but until they become persistently block-headed most people try to help them see their errors in a constructive fashion. The only reason it is pointed out in the religion forum is because some see religion as a soft target, and need it pointing out to them. There is room for diplomacy on all of the SFN boards. This one is not special in that regard - we just want members to be very clear on the policy that the mods will be working to.

Norman Albers has been suspended for a week for spamming the forums after receiving a 4-point infraction for spam.

To add to what Swansont said, there's no reason not to give an academic reference just because you don't think people will have access to it. There are people who have Athens access and similar even though they are not "in science", and there are libraries. Of course, this is not to say that it won't slow the discussion down, but if someone wants an academic source for something you have said and that's the only one going, then that's the only one going. Wikipedia has its drawbacks but it usually gives a reasonable primer and most articles on topics we are likely to discuss give further reading as well as cited sources. Where I think a lot of people fall down with Wikipedia is that they do not check the discussion tab of pages to see what petty arguments have shaped the content of the main article.

A few months ago all the mods and admins adopted BSG avatars... (source). I just haven't changed mine yet.

That one would certainly be a priority in my view. Maybe we could derive some sort of source priority ranking table.

I really don't think that discussing the way you use or do not use sources is quite in the same ballpark as giving you a bashing. Since you didn't feel compelled to make a reported post out of it I am going to assume that actually, neither do you, and your reply is simply an issue avoidance tactic. Well that's fine. Other people can still benefit from this discussion.

This thread has been started after a comment SkepticLance rightly made in the Limit to Growth thread. Basically he felt that he was being asked for sources disproportionately more frequently than other members, and that other people do not cite references as often as he is asked to provide them. While I personally think that's a monster Lance creates for himself, you can't ignore the fact that we don't use references anywhere near as one would expect on a forum like this. Certainly we ask for them much more than we provide them without being asked ourselves. Do we do it often enough? Do we rely too much on poor sources? Do we invoke higher standards for others than we do for ourselves? How much prior knowledge should be assumed before we point to a source? This is a discussion about how frequently we use citations and references. It is not intended to become a SkepticLance bashing exercise, but I am going to reply to some of his comments from the other thread because I think they highlight some issues with understanding and working with sources. The difference here though is that Mokele will, if asked, be delighted to trundle off and fetch at least one source. He won't deflect the issue for 200 posts. Should we have some sort of baseline rule whereby a source must be provided if requested? That would be like the only "absolute minimum force" rule we could make; one does not pick up an argument and run with it if one's source is challenged. I am inclined to agree on this point. The tactic only really works though in threads where there is a dearth of people who are experienced enough with the subject matter to be able to point out how redundant a citation is. I think the common counter-view to this will be that if you have to search on google to prove a point then you are ostensibly not familiar enough with the subject matter to go straight to the correct journal database, or even a web site which accommodates articles for the relevant discipline. Yes, but like Mokele they would if asked. Whereas we have to strong-arm you sometimes for dozens of posts before you will back up your entire argument with even one reference. Find and quote dozens of cases of other people doing that (outside of P&S, that would be cheating). Also don't neglect the opposite condition, which would turn up dozens of examples of the same people volunteering sources. What a poster thinks of as unimportant might be perceived as critical to their arguments by other people. On a site like this, there's a good chance those other people will have seen something in the reasoning or data which the original poster did not. I think that's a lesson we can all learn from, in fact. It would help if we all stated why a reference is necessary when asking for one. Eventually. Although to be fair, you really do have to admit that this is usually anything which aligns with your view. This is a false memory though, isn't it Lance? In fact you linked to a news item on the Harvard network which briefly discussed researchers' views and repeated an inference. Do you really want that as your example? It took 165 posts before you went looking for that. And I didn't post any scathing comments "just after", unless you think ten days later is very quick and that scathing means "totally unrelated". The reference was read, Lance. It was ignored for various reasons which were stated in the thread. Because you were looking for something to support your conclusion, instead of interpreting all the available data (which was another criticism you received), you of course found a source which agreed with your claim. But we had already disputed the reasoning behind that claim, which meant that we also disputed the inference which was made in the Harvard news article. So basically it was an appeal to authority. Sorry. I know it's difficult to do right for doing wrong sometimes. But there is another valuable lesson to be learned here: those of us who are trained in researching sources and evaluating data and evidence need to be much more mindful that other people aren't. I think this would best be expressed as practical advice to accompany requests for sources. That doesn't make you more right. It makes you as right as they are, which in that case was "not a lot". Especially since it was a 3rd hand report about an inference. I think this exposes the major danger of googling for supportive articles - one either doesn't get the depth one requires, or falls into the trap of selection bias.

Are you high?

Ever tried to tell someone how to use a particular bit of BB code, and had to tell them something like "remove the spaces to make the tags work"? Then you'll have probably given up and gone for a cigarette when they said "what spaces?" VB includes a tag called noparse which you can use for displaying BB code as normal text. Any BB code enclosed by the noparse tags will be ignored when the post is parsed and rendered to the browser. So, for example, if I take this... Bold text ...and surround it with noparse tags... Bold text ...you will see this: Bold text Try it out!

Tags are a relatively new feature on vBulletin forums, and from looking at the tags which have been added to threads so far it looks like a short tutorial might be needed. What are Tags? Tags are metadata keywords. This means that they are data about data, in other words they describe content. Why use Tags? Tags have several functions: They let members and search engines find content by keyword, They give a brief overview as to what the main subject of content is about, They allow content to be ordered into related subjects, They can show how popular a subject is. How should Tags be entered? When you start a thread, you can add tags to the box directly beneath the post editing panel. You can add up to 25 tags to a thread. Tags should be separated with a comma. You should NOT end the list of tags with a period or any other punctuation. vBulletin does NOT separate tags based on spaces. Therefore if you were discussing the philosophy of science, the following would be poor tag form: What does the tag "of" tell anyone about the content it is attached to? Nothing. The following would be good form: Conversely with more general topics you might want to split up all the words, so might be better than What should you not use as a Tag? A good tag is a concise, high-level keyword or key phrase which is significant to the topic at hand, and above all it should be meaningful. Therefore bad tags would be something like the following: Posting frivolous tags may be considered spam, which could attract a warning or infraction points. Other general pointers If you have an acronym, don't use periods to separate the letters and ensure you include the main words from the expanded version. For example if you were starting a thread in the computer science forum about denial of service attacks, this would be a good set of tags: This would be a poor set of tags for that thread: Last but not least, check your spelling. A mis-spelled tag is useless.

Welcome to the site Trumpetmeister!

Stop being so paranoid. There are no consumer-grade printers capable of producing a convincing forgery anyway, never mind ones that contact the CIA every time someone prints a novelty dollar.

Why don't you scan in a note and try to print it?

Or to put it another way, today you will either die or not die, whilst talking.

This thread has been dead for over a year. Kinda makes the ranting twice as useless, doesn't it?

Really? Because my comment referred to posts plural, and I have corrected one term in one post so far. Let's not make a mountain out of a molehill; that one phrase is a common error and it just happens to be one of my bug bears. If you don't like being corrected then I apologise for any discomfort. Yes. I was referring to the reasons behind the use of mutually accepted, conventional terminologies. The specific details of the subject matter are utterly irrelevant. I am glad to hear you are studious (goodness knows we like having members with such inclinations!) but you have to admit that this on its own does not necessarily mean that you have reached any useful conclusions. Or conclusions that will assist in this discussion, to be more precise. Interesting. Are you not of the opinion that structure and function go hand-in-hand? I do not advocate a "science lesson", but I maintain that you need to be careful about the precise details of what you say. In the section of my post you replied to, I warned that a strawman accusation could result from certain means of approaching a topic - having read my post you then went on to make a comment that could have been called as a strawman (the "And “DUH”, you are telling me I might have misinterpreted something!" part). Yes, it has got a bit convoluted this thread. But recall that I entered a dialogue with you specifically in relation to the abstract thought comment, and that the points of discussion which are pertinent to that are all that matter to it. Perhaps it would have been better if we had just started a new thread, "What is Abstract Thought?" or similar. [EDIT: Lucaspa has now started a new thread here: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=30956] Reason and logic are useful to abstract thought but can operate outside it (for example, when dealing with concrete entities), and verbalisation is not any indicator of abstract thought. I think we are in danger of muddying the waters somewhat. Are you saying you want Lucaspa to revisit those two points and present more comprehensive evidence? I would be interested also, although not so much as an opponent. Also, top marks for using "phooey" and "piffle" in the same post.